


Three Times the Doctor was an Idiot Under the Mistletoe and One Time he Wasn't

by infinite_regress



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Kissing, Romance, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-18 23:46:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13111074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/infinite_regress/pseuds/infinite_regress
Summary: Kissmas Whouffaldi





	1. Chapter 1

They had been tearing through the forest for what seemed ages when Clara finally had to catch her breath. She paused under an ancient oak tree, one hand on the gnarly bark, searching the sky for signs of ships in pursuit. Maybe their luck had changed and they'd shaken them off. With that thought, she leaned back and relaxed a little. Gallingly, the Doctor hardly seemed out of breath at all. He scanned the horizon, probably calculating the odds they could escape with their lives this time. It was still a few more miles to the TARDIS and safety. As she gathered her breath and wits, Clara noticed a green plant with white berries curling around the boughs of the old tree above their heads. She tugged the Doctor's arm and pointed upwards. 

“Viscum album,” the Doctor said, distracted. “Parasitic plant."

"Oh?" 

"In Norse Mythology Loki tricked the blind God Hodur into murdering Balder with an arrow made of it.” 

“Hmm, interesting. Know anything else about it?”

The Doctor shrugged. “I don’t think so.” He sniffed the air. “Smoke. Coming from that way.” He shifted from foot to foot, his eyes looking everywhere but at her. “I think the Venflaxian war planes hit their targets. We better go.” 

“I don’t smell anything...”

“Really, Clara, do you want to get us blown up?”

Clara grumbled under her breath, but followed him anyway.


	2. Dakari Screamers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clara has one too many and loses her sunglasses.

“Doctaaar,” Clara slurred. Then she wobbled.

  
The Doctor scooped his arm around her waist and guided her to the door. He should have known it would be a mistake to leave her alone with an open bar and the drinks that-didn’t-taste-of-alcohol-but-very-much-were on a planet where the New Year celebration never seemed to end.

  
Clara jerked him to a halt. “That guy with the long neck. He’s got my sunglasses.” The Doctor glanced back. He didn’t like the look of the guy with the long neck. More accurately, he didn’t like the way the guy with the long neck looked at Clara. All that laughing and smiling. Bantering. He was against bantering, especially if he wasn’t part of it.

  
“I’ll get you a new pair.” He encouraged her forwards.

  
“I like my old pair,” Clara said, plaintively, resisting his efforts to move her away from the bar, and the party, and the guy with the long neck.

  
“Surely new is better.”

  
“They have character,” she declared, stubbornly clinging to his arm, words gushing out. “Just because things look old doesn’t mean they’re not attractive.”

  
He raised an eyebrow at that.

  
“Useful,” she burbled on. “I meant just cos something’s old doesn’t mean it’s not useful.”

  
Clara wobbled again, trying to go in the opposite direction he was taking her. He wasn’t quite sure if it was her dangerously high heels or the fifth Dakari Screamer that was responsible for her difficulty walking in a straight line. He had to admit, she did it with style, with her stunning smile and those eyes...

  
He pulled himself back to reality. “That might be true,” he conceded, “but we’re not going back...” He swung her gently about, back in the direction of the TARDIS.

  
Clara snorted. “Take you, for example. You’re 2000 years old...” She leaned forward and circled her finger around his face, and then hopped his nose with her finger. “And still. Useful.”

  
Clara tried to swing them around again, but he resisted. They came to an impasse under a low archway, decorated with greenery and Christmas cheer.

  
She jabbed her finger upwards. “Oops. Look where we are.”

  
He glanced up. Mistletoe.

  
“You know what that means, don’t you?” Clara said, grinning, swaying slightly from side to side.

  
“No idea,” he lied, still trying to manoeuvre her forwards.

  
She wouldn’t budge. “People kiss under the mistletoe, you know.”

  
“People do,” he agreed, stepping back to put some distance between them, and added quietly. “Not people like you and me, though.” Not a Time Lord and his companion. Not Clara Oswald and the Doctor. That wasn’t the way things worked.

  
“Why not?” she smiled, wobbling her way closer, her eyes full of mischief, her face bright and far too adorable.

  
He sputtered nervously. “You’re drunk, Clara.” How ever much he might want to, he had no intention of kissing Clara while she was intoxicated. That would be the king of bad ideas. Not happening.

  
“You might like it,” she said, trailing her hand along the front of his jacket.

  
“I like dinosaurs. Doesn’t mean getting close to one is a good idea,” he said, taking her hand firmly.

  
“I don’t bite,” Clara replied, a seductive edge to her voice.

  
“That’s a matter of opinion,” he mumbled, looking anywhere but her face. Her eyes. They would be his undoing.

  
“You need to loosen up,” she said, edging him ever closer to that moment where his defences would crumble, his layers would fall away, leaving nothing but the truth.

  
No. He was the Doctor. Fire and ice at the heart of the universe. Now, he must be ice. He snapped, “You need to sober up.”

  
Clara rolled her eyes in an exaggerated fashion. “Idiot.”

  
“Finally. Something we can agree on. Can we go?”

  
Clara sighed theatrically. “Alright.” 


	3. Merry Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Christmas moment for Clara and the Doctor

Clara didn’t really know what drew her to the Doctor. Certainly the way he said her name with that soft Scottish burr sent shivers down her spine. The way he looked into her eyes, caught her glance just long enough to smile and then look away, made her cheeks flare red and hot. It was hard to look at him sometimes, but it was harder to look away. Anyone else, she’d call it flirting, but this was the Doctor and she wasn’t entirely sure what constituted flirting in his case.

  
Then again, maybe it was the way he held her hand when they ran, hearts racing, blood pumping, the thrill of adventure coursing through her veins, like nothing she’d felt anywhere else, ever. He did show her wonders. Maybe that kept her waiting breathlessly for Wednesdays, counting down the moments until the magic blue box appeared in her hall way or kitchen, or more often lately in her bedroom. He’d even shown up in her bathroom once, while she was in the bath no less, and proceeded to give her a run down of his latest exploits without missing a beat.

  
Clara couldn’t quite figure out what drew them together like giant stars collapsing into one another. His intentions. Her feelings all seemed impossible to fathom – and Clara Oswald hated not being able to figure things out.

  
She certainly didn't intend for them to end up standing by a frosted window, right under a sprig of Mistletoe on Christmas day in 1818. A fire crackled in the hearth as they watched snow swirl up in the streets and the flakes dance in the light of the gas lamps. She didn’t intend to look up into his eyes with her heart doing summersaults, lips slightly parted. His hair had been flattened by the top hat he’d just taken off and snowflakes still dusted the shoulders of his long frock coat. She never intended to fall hook line and sinker for this glorious Time Lord. She tried very hard not to. Yet here they were.

  
“Clara,” he said, and she realised there was no end to that sentence. It was complete in and of itself, all he could say in that moment, telling her everything and nothing. He’d let her know, in his own time, how much of her he could withstand, moving in graduated stages from not-hugging to where they were right now. Holding hands, eyes locked. She longed to kiss him, but at her slight movement towards him, his shoulders stiffened.

  
She sighed softly.

  
“I’m sorry,” he said. Squeezed her hand. “I’m an idiot.”

  
She saw the paradox of wanting and not wanting in his eyes. She could spend her life with him: fill all her years with wonders, running hand in hand across the cosmos with this Time Lord who had chosen her from the billions. Until now, she’d barely stopped to question what must it be like for him to watch the sands of time run out for people he cared for, see generation after generation ebb and flow, witness his people dust and his home lost. All that pain and sadness could have soured him. But it just made him kind. Bringer of hope in an uncertain world.

  
“It’s alright,” she whispered. “I understand. At least I think I do.” Raising herself on her tiptoes, Clara pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek. “Merry Christmas, Doctor.”

  
He smiled, his ancient eyes flecked gold in the firelight. “Merry Christmas, Clara.”


	4. Bigger on the Inside

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor discovers a few things about kisses.

The Doctor paused in the doorway to the Venflaxian Ambassador’s Boxing Day celebration and glanced up. “Look where we are. Again.” Here they were, second and third chances zipping by at light speed, always running and hiding and patting himself on the back for his cleverness, never noticing what was right under his nose. Wasn’t it time to stop being an idiot?

  
Her eyes followed his to the top of the arch and halted on the sprig of mistletoe.

  
“Oh,” she murmured, smiling softly. Her eyes trailed back down again until they locked with his.

  
At that moment, a bulky woman with a small blue dog tucked under her arm bustled through the doorway, thrusting Clara towards him. With a small exclamation of surprise Clara stopped herself short with her palm flat to his chest. She was closer now, so close, her eyes so wide. Her hair shone. She smelled of Christmas and courage and never giving up. Her lips broke into a glorious smile, and at that moment, as if an invisible thread joined them and was reeling him in, all he could think about was kissing her. Hearts racing, he pressed a kiss to her lips, a kiss that lingered a moment too long to be chaste, but not long enough to rise into full passion.

  
She looked up at him, her eyes bright. “A kiss under the mistletoe?” she murmured. “Are we kissing now? It’s hard to keep up.”

  
“Not that I've been counting, but it seems to me I’ve already missed three chances. Didn’t want to miss a fourth.” He lay a hand on her shoulder, keeping the contact going instead of backing away, the thread holding firm, because he'd discovered something very important about kissing Clara. He liked it. A lot.

  
“I would say,” she whispered, “that means you owe me three more kisses. Since we’re not counting.”

  
“And these kisses we’re not counting,” he said, bringing one hand to her waist. “You think it’s time I paid up?”

  
She smiled. “Do you?”

  
Yes and yes, a million times yes. He’d kiss her right now and never stop. “Probably,” he said, his hearts hammering. He eased her back against the door frame, a little surprised at his own boldness, and pressed his lips to hers, in a longer, questioning kiss. For a split second, she froze and for a sinking moment he thought he’d miss judged everything. She was going to push him away. Ask him how he dared. Probably slap his face for good measure. How could he have been so stupid? He pulled back and stared at her, his hearts in her hands.

  
Then she pushed him back, pressing him against the other side of the door frame. Kissing him, hard and hot, her lips fire, her heart thundering against his chest as their bodies collided. He tangled his fingers through her hair, caught in her brilliance, all his lives spinning towards the flare of that moment, fusing their hearts until her brightness dazzled him.

  
When the kiss finally broke, Clara said breathlessly, “That’s two.”

  
“Uh oh. Now we have a problem.”

  
“We do?”

  
“What happens if we use up that last kiss?” Three kisses under the mistletoe felt like they had only scratched the surface of this particular adventure. There were light years to travel yet.

  
“Ah, Doctor,” Clara said, her eyes inflating to the size of small stars. “You know the good thing about kisses?” She leaned in and whispered into his ear. “Kisses are bigger on the inside.”

  
He laughed and pulled her into a long, sweet kiss, burning hot and hotter, made of worlds colliding and stars forming at the centre of creation, full of hope and promise, and this time he didn’t feel like an idiot at all.


End file.
